The Prowl
By Zac Dunn
Art by Josh Keyes
Published Issue 141, September 2025
“The Prowl” by Zac Dunn was inspired by the art piece “Hide and Seek” by Josh Keyes
Black paws moved slowly past the ruins that lay silent. The bunny smelled something succulent and cautiously edged to investigate its source. They both crept from the places they slept to a window frame that had remained the same for far too long, only to wonder where the other was. The tiny bunny held minute breaths that murmured the cat’s purr. Their bellies were too hungry for them to be calm — to move back to the burrows that would keep them both safe from the prying eyes they knew all too well to evade.
As the panther gazed over the filthy cement ledge looking for his prey, a small bird drew his attention. Its chirps distracted his keen ears from hearing the fearful palpitations he could sense so close. The bird summoned several more that flew into the filthy bunker, filling its moldy wall with a delicate song that drovethe panther mad. Yet he was starving this cool morning and pounced over the ledge to either catch one or banish the infernal ratchet from the space he felt held his next morsel of flesh oh so close. But as his paws landed on the floor the tiny bunny was much too clever, making haste to scurry back up over the ledge and into the dense brush that clung to the bunker.
The panther growled and hissed at the cursed birds, but they mocked his advance with a simple tune that only made him more irate. The bunker was cold and empty like his belly now. The bunny made it back to his burrow beneath the mighty banyan tree just up the hill. To hide and sleep from the claws and paws that seek to gobble him up whole.
Zac Dunn is a psycho-social mechanic, father, musician and dreamer. Check out his music and follow him on X | Instagram | Tumblr.
Inspired by 18th-century aesthetics and philosophy, Portland-based ecosurrealist Josh Keyes paints animals in a style reminiscent of anatomical diagrams. His work is characterized by an attention to detail and to physiological accuracy. Josh, however, does not place his animal subjects in their natural settings; rather, they are often in peril, displaced from their natural ecosystems into dioramic fantastical situations. These landscapes are frequently isolated and contain an incompatible mix of the natural and manmade. Josh acknowledges that themes of migration and displacement frequently feature into his work as a form of his preoccupation with global climate change and the human impact on nature. See more of his work on Instagram | Snag prints of his work on American Easel
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